Jordan Thistlewood, Senior Product Manager, Foundry

UI and UX improvements

Katana 2.6 builds on work started in 2016, with further UI and UX enhancements making it easier to use, even for those picking up the toolset for the first time. We’ve made dozens of fine-tuning improvements to make it faster to get through repetitive tasks, freeing up your time to be creative.

Important steps toward our new Viewer and API

Significant progress has been made towards the new Hydra-based Viewer through a new custom Viewer API, which will allow pre-built, custom viewers to be connected to Katana. Both the new Viewer and the final Viewer API are expected to be fully operational in an upcoming release.

Enhanced tech docs

Katana 2.6 comes with improved technical documentation, allowing you to make custom tools and get technical with shaders and UI parameters more easily.

A fit for more pipelines

Katana® 2.5 brings the latest chapter of our look development and lighting tool to Windows. In addition, Katana 2.5 is easier to install, and offers an expanded range of supporting plug-ins, including RenderMan, V-Ray, Arnold and 3Delight.

Color and float ramp widgets

Easily select a range of colors or floating-point grayscale values to use as an input to a shader or light with an intuitive, visual UI that offers a more artist-friendly look development experience than in previous versions.

Gaffer Three light filter support

It’s now possible to add light filters—such as barn doors, blockers or gobos that stop or reduce the effect of a light for certain parts of the scene—directly to lights in Gaffer Three nodes, Katana’s default lighting tool, streamling workflow and reducing node complexity.